16 week appointment

Seeing as today I am 18 weeks and 4 days, I have to apologize for getting this up so late. It's been a little crazy around here and I'll explain why in this post.

The day before my appointment I started having some cramp like pain on my left side. I was really nervous because that's not a great sign during pregnancy. I knew I had an appointment the next day and I didn't want to be THAT person who went to the hospital when anything felt a little off. So I sucked it up and figured if it didn't go away I would just ask my doctor about it the next day when I went it, but of course I was anxious about it all night.

When I first got to the doctor I checked in and then waited to meet with the OB nurse. She gave me a huge new mom packet with pages and pages of new mom information about the hospital I would be delivering, classes they recommend taking, and a few parenting magazines. Before I got done talking with her she went over my last blood tests, took my blood pressure and I was off to wait for my doctor. Everything checked out fine with the nurse but I was still nervous about the baby because I had the cramping the night before.

Once I got put into a room a woman came in with the heart Doppler and found the heart beat immediately. I was so relieved that I started crying. The nurse even made a comment that is was a strong and steady heartbeat. I was at peace knowing that our baby was okay.

After about 30 more minutes of waiting my doctor came in and was like we need to talk. All of a sudden I felt my heart start racing. My OB nurse had written down that my heart rate was in the 130s. My doctor expressed her concern because once it gets into the 140s it can start affecting the baby. I was trying so hard not to cry but I was so worried and my mind kept imagining the worst things happening. She took it again and it had gone down some. I told her maybe it was just nerves because I was really anxious about the pain I was having. She checked things out and turns out it's just my uterus stretching to accommodate that sweet baby of ours.

One thing I really love about my doctor is she is really about preventative care. She ordered for me to get more blood work done on top of the normal tests to see if we could figure out what was causing the tachycardia. So we got that done and then she sent us off to the hospital to get an ekg. As soon as I got in the car I lost it. I started bawling. Being pregnant is already emotional enough but add in the fact that your body could be potentially hurting your baby and I was a blubbering mess. I'm so grateful Brad's been able to come to every appointment, but especially that one because I needed him.

We finally got the results back a week later and everything came back within normal ranges and we are chalking that whole thing up as first time mom jitters. We are so relieved and thankful that it isn't anything serious. I have to really monitor my heart rate and take it easy if I feel it going up but that's not hard to do.

Our next appointment is our big 20 week anatomy scan and we seriously can't wait to find out what we are having! We even have a little countdown on our calendar on the fridge! If you have a guess leave it below! :)